Season 45 Premiere Preview! Plus How Things Have Changed in 45 Years of MotorWeek

Welcome to the podcast of MotorWeek, television's original automotive magazine.

MotorWeek is made possible by AutoValue and Bumper2Bumper and TireRack.com.

Here's your MotorWeek podcast host, John Davis.

Welcome to MotorWeek podcast number 360, our first podcast of MotorWeek's 45th season.

So we are ever more glad to have you with us.

And for all of that eye and continue to be your host, John Davis, and in honor of this

milestone, we have convened a fairly grisly bunch for today's podcast to do a little reminiscing

along with their new observations, starting with 38-year veteran senior executive producer

David Scrivner.

Hello.

There he is, 32-year veteran senior executive producer, Brian Roberts.

Hello, everyone.

Could not miss this one.

And the kid amongst us today, 13-year veteran and over-the-edge reporter, Greg Carlos.

Rather modest 13-year to the royalty that's around me now.

Yeah, but it's been a good one, a good run.

We're going to get into their lowdowns on two new vehicles in our first episode for

the 45th season, the Ferrari Roma Spider, always a delight to test a Ferrari.

And the much talked about and long-awaited all-new Toyota 4Runner.

But first, we thought we'd talk a little bit about who we are, how we got here.

And Dave, I'm going to turn to you as the almost oldest veteran at this table.

Why don't you start?

What brought you to Motor Week?

How did it first become part of your life?

I started with you as an intern in December of 1987 when my scriptwriting teacher at

Towson University suggested me to you because you were an intern who could write.

And it was a plus.

It was a plus.

Two months later.

Seriously, people don't realize how important the written word is to us.

It's paramount.

Yeah.

And writing the time, writing to a word count, and getting to say things once and have you

grasp the meaning of it the first time.

You can't reread.

And that's right.

So you hired me in March of 1988, and I graduated in May of 1988.

So I was working at Nights for two months, opening fan mail, basically.

You know, the old terrestrial mail that everybody used to get.

We used to get tons of it every week.

I went from that to coordinating producer, where I did all the scheduling for the cars

and the crews.

I went producer, senior producer, executive producer, and now senior executive producer.

We've almost run out of titles for you, Dave.

I wanted to have seen your producer, but he's like, no, that's not.

But over the years, taking a look at that, did you ever guess that you would stick

around with us for this long?

No.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to do something with cars, and I liked video as well, the immediacy of the

results of video.

I just, instead of developing film, I didn't think the car show thing would

last that long.

No, neither did we.

But it's taken me to 49 states and 38 countries and thousands upon thousands

of cars driven, and it's been quite a ride.

Brian, how about you?

Well in the summer of 93, I was looking for an internship.

I also went to Towson University.

And I was going through where to do an internship, and I saw this place called

Motor Week.

I loved cars growing up.

I worked on cars with my father, and obviously I was a broadcast journalism

major at Towson, so it seemed like a perfect fit.

So I was Lisa Barrow's intern for the summer, learned a lot from her, had a

great time, and then the summer came to a close, and there was a PA job

opening, a production assistant job that was opening up in September.

But I had to go back for another semester, and I could not do the job.

So the best advice I got from Lisa was, keep your foot in the door, come back

at least once a week, maybe some time.

Check in, just let everybody know you're there.

Yeah, so I would come back once a week until December, and then another job

opened up.

I graduated, I got the PA job, I was super excited.

My first career job, it was minimum wage, but I was happy to have a job

in television.

I started out making $14.5 a year, thought I'd die if I'd gone to heaven.

But I doubled it since then, so we're okay.

Oh, come on now.

You get paid.

You get paid that much.

But you know, this is the importance of interns, positions in any industry,

but particularly in the broadcast cable visual arts industry.

It's very easy to see who's here to drive the cool cars, and who wants

to learn.

Who wants to learn, and who wants to work hard.

You can really tell somebody's work ethic by working with them constantly.

Yes.

Greg, what brought you to us first?

Yeah, an internship.

Ah, there you go.

That's a trifecta, folks.

It's crazy.

I was thinking about this the other night, and what I would be doing

if I didn't get here, and I don't have an aunt.

I think about myself in college at the time.

I'm like, what was my plan?

Because I was interning my final semester, so here's how it started.

I grew up watching Motor Week, so you guys were kind of like in closer

to the ground floor of Motor Week, whereas I grew up watching it with my dad.

And then, so when I get to college, I'm in film and television.

I'm a communications major, but I really just wanted to gravitate

towards film.

But not Talson.

Not Talson.

I was at McDaniel College in Westminster.

And as luck would have it, Jonathan Slade was my advisor.

He worked at MBT.

He's done a lot of stuff with MBT, and he told me there was

an internship at Motor Week.

I didn't know that, so I applied, didn't hear anything back.

And he's like, you should just email John directly.

He's like, because he has your email.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, Jonathan and I go way back.

I'll just email the host of the show, and sure enough, you got back

to me right away.

Then Robinson called me.

I was in for an interview.

He did his little version of an interview.

He's like, can you drive a manual?

Can you do this?

I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And yeah, so I started interning maybe like two days a week or whatever

it was, because I was working and going to school, finishing up school.

And I remember maybe, what was it, maybe a month or two into the internship.

I realized I wasn't getting enough time here.

So I actually quit my job to spend more time here, because I'm like, I'm never going

to get what I need out of the internship unless I spend more time here.

Probably the best decision you made.

It seriously is, because had I not done that, I don't think I would have been

here enough to get what I got out of it.

And I had a job.

I interviewed for the production assistant job with you, Brian.

And before I graduated, I had already signed on.

Well, we knew we wanted you, because you were a good intern.

I mean, because you just like, you know, you show up and you go out with

road tests all the time.

I mean, it's, yeah, I mean, I don't know, this podcast isn't

to talk about the importance of interning, but I think we've all can all say,

especially in this industry, like you got to get in and do it.

There's nothing that can compare to you.

And we're always getting the question, you know, how do I become part of your

staff?

Well, A, there has to be an opening, B, you have to be able to work for

pretty meager wages, but we're not looking so much for people that just

are into cars, but people that have the expertise, either writing or

shooting or something in the visual audio mediums.

We can pretty much teach you about cars.

It's great if you're interested in it, but we're looking for the

talents that you need to build a production staff.

And you three at this table really are embody what this show has been all

about for 45 years, a great talent that basically loves cars as a secondary

thing.

And then it becomes the primary thing in your life found that's kind of

what separated us on these press events where we go and we're with

people from car and drive or we're with everybody, all the media,

the print media and now it's mostly video media, but I always felt

like I don't know if you guys felt this way.

Like I am a car enthusiast, but I felt like when you see the other

media there, I almost felt like I was more of a TV, it was more evident

that I was a TV producer and a car enthusiast, but felt like they were

more like car enthusiasts, like solely.

And learned how to do TV or whatever.

Their whole thing was like they get there, they drive the car, they

write it down, then they go home and write their story.

We were like, I'm with a videographer, like I'm planning out

my day.

Like it just felt like...

Well, you were producing.

Yeah.

Like I almost...

I don't...

I almost maybe feel inadequate as like a car enthusiast, even though

I know I am one, but it's like I almost had like a job on top of my

job there, driving press cards.

I think that always sort of set us apart at the events, even going

back to the early days when I did a lot more of the travel than

you guys do now.

And you would get there and usually we would have a camera in

tow and it took more time for us to be with the cars to get our

impressions, because we were shooting them at the same time.

We always worked over lunch.

We were always there at the crack of dawn to get a car in the

morning.

Everybody else comes out well rested and it had to be the

right color car too.

Yep.

No white, no black.

No white or black car.

Yep.

Looking back at all of your years, and I'll start again

with Dave, what do you think has changed most about the job,

the show, whatever, in your 38 years?

I think, to me, was editing the show was always all day

Wednesday.

Yeah.

All day, we'd be in the control room and we'd assemble the

show piece by piece by piece by piece with audio, a tape

operator and all this stuff.

And now we get a feed sent to us by email and watch it on

our phone.

And that's it.

But the camera equipment, remember our first in-car

camera?

Oh, it was a race cam.

It was a race.

Well, even before that, when we were strapping a full

size remote camera to the side of the car.

We would tape a shovel to a wing and tape a camera to the

shovel and stick it outside of the car and we had a separate

tape deck.

The original GoPro?

Yeah.

And for the cars, the efficiency and performance is just

you look back at somebody's hot cars from the day and it's

like, that thing is as slow as the last one.

It's a slug now.

Or the numbers handle well at all.

Crazy, crazy horsepower numbers now.

Brian, how about you?

To take the TV production a little further, there's a

little lipstick cameras we used to use like at Robling

Road.

It would take the videographers over an hour to set them up.

That was the race camera.

Yeah.

It would take over an hour.

You put the cassette deck on the passenger seat, strap it

down with a seat belt and run it out.

And now it takes two minutes to set up a GoPro for the

same shot and we can run that multiple times.

So the production has definitely been streamlined

quite a bit.

Even before that though, when you would have a

videographer like Ray Coata hanging out the side of a

car holding the camera on his shoulder strapped in with a

helicopter harness so we could get a shot of the wheel or

even a shot back at the driver.

Yeah.

And we always wished we had the budget for a

helicopter to get those amazing drone shots that we

get nowadays.

I think drones have really changed the way the

show looks.

Taking it to a new level.

Our next topic, the Roma, we shot the

statics of the drone and just hover around the car

into a 360.

It shows the car so well and the effects of it was a

really good part of the road test we did.

Greg, what about you?

You haven't been here as long, but you've probably

seen a lot of change.

Yeah.

I mean, a lot of changes in a decade.

So yeah, just to kind of piggyback on the

equipment thing, it's, you know, because it's so good

now, like even light isn't as big of a deal.

I remember when we, we still use the XD cams, those

big new style cameras for our drive-bys and because

of the way those cameras function, light is very

important.

You need to shoot in the right direction or else the

shot is useless.

These new cameras are so good at handling light,

like I know when we go out for shoots now, it's not

as important to be in the absolute right angle.

And even if like a little shade comes in, it's

not a big deal.

If you're in, if you're shooting an

under tree cover and stuff like that, but it's

just the sheer amount of shots we use now and

from the variety of cameras, like, you know,

you watch those old retro reviews and, you

know, we'll hold on to a shot for five, six

seconds.

We had to.

I really hang on to a shot for more than two.

And it just, you know, we don't, we probably

don't spend as much time getting a singular shot,

but we spend more time getting a variety of

shots from a multitude of cameras and how much

storage space.

Well, it doesn't take up as much physical space.

The, the digital space that we probably put

into every episode has just gone up exponentially.

Well, once upon a time in the early days, if

we had a five minute road test, it might

have 15 to 20 shots in it.

The shots would last forever.

I'm researching the anniversary show and in

Show 101, the opening shot is the follow shot

from the suburban of an escort wagon.

It's a two and a half minute shot.

Was it that long?

And now it's 60, 70.

I haven't actually counted lately, but, you

know, really there's, sky is not the limit.

Yeah. And I think that we've probably

maybe reached a limit, like, because if you

go too many shots, I think then we get

into blind, blindingly fast.

Right. We're kind of just like proving

our own worth to ourselves.

Whereas, like, I think maybe we could even

like tone it back to a little bit more

in the old days where we maybe hang on

to shots a little bit longer.

You know, that's my personal taste of.

We do, we do hear that from some folks

that really want to be able to take in the car.

The problem with that is there's a tempo

that you've got to keep up.

And a lot of that is not dictated by

necessarily other television shows, but by video

in general that's on YouTube or other

social media, fast, fast, quick, quick.

And you don't want, and the audience

is used to seeing that.

So you want to make sure they don't, frankly,

lose interest.

Part of why we have to do that, again,

going back to retro stuff and what Dave

was talking about with performance,

how that's evolved.

When we shoot at Robling, we have

to do that to make cars look fast.

Because if you haven't noticed,

like, cars don't roll anymore on the track.

Right.

They don't, they don't transfer weight.

They don't, they don't, you don't lose traction and gorns.

We're driving faster than we ever have before,

but it doesn't look like it when we're

using our traditional shots because like the car.

Because it's so smooth looking.

It's like an athlete just jogging.

It doesn't look hard at all.

But it's like we actually are going fast,

but because the car doesn't look like it's going fast,

we have to give the viewer that sense of speed

and we do that with all the different shots.

It's amazing, you know, the cars,

how fast they're going now and how controlled they are.

There's very little drama.

Well, the technology.

The technology.

Well, the drivers have been here for 30 some years, so.

Oh, yeah.

The technology in cars has advanced so.

I think it's a little of both.

It's a lot of both.

I actually remember in 1998, I was on a Mercedes S-Class

launch in Germany.

And that's when ESC came out, electronically.

Electronic Skid Control.

Our stability control.

And so they had us in the meeting room before

and they were explaining it.

You know, they had these diagram of when the car

oversteers, the inner brake, and we were like,

what is that about?

And then we went out in the parking lot.

Why do I need that?

Yeah, we went in the parking lot and we tried it

and it was so intrusive.

It was like, oh my God, what is this?

But it has evolved so much over the years,

you don't even feel it anymore.

Well, all the safety features, the automatic braking,

all of these things that when they first came along,

we sort of questioned why we really need it.

But it's up the safety factor for cars enormously.

Imagine not having blind spot indicators now.

Or even a rear view camera.

Yeah, rear view cameras, everything.

Yes.

Yeah, I still object to the steer the car for me.

Yeah.

Well, for you, they can switch it off.

If you can.

Let's actually talk about some of your best memories

or most exciting times.

Just, you know, basically what

sticks out in your head as the most memorable times

or time that you've ever spent on the show

or doing anything for the show?

I'll start with that one.

And my first 25 years here, it sounds really old,

I used to travel quite a bit.

Yeah.

We were gone every week.

I was gone all the time.

I was on a press event in Maranello, Italy

at the factory for a Ferrari event.

It was for the 2000 Ferrari 360 Modenda.

And we spent all day on the track.

It was an editor from Car and Drive,

driving all the different Ferraris, the 456.

This was a died and gone to heaven moment.

Yeah, the 550 Maranello.

So we're on the track, spending a half a day.

He's driving, switching up back and forth.

And mind you, this track was called the Circuit Day Fiorano.

And Enzo Ferrari's house was in the middle of that circuit.

I guess they built the circuit around it.

And Michael Schumacher, when he was not driving F1 cars,

that was his test track and where he would stay.

So we're driving half a day, going back and forth.

And after two, three hours, we kind of look at each other

and say, I think we probably should stop now.

Let's quit while we're ahead.

Because you certainly.

And before we do something that we're sorry about.

Faster and faster and faster.

And we certainly didn't want to do anything to a Ferrari

on their home facility.

So yeah, that was pretty memorable for me.

Because even back in the days, we

were one of the first TV crews

to actually shoot inside the Ferrari factory.

But even when we did that, I don't

think we got to drive on the track that day.

It was really a special day.

Dave, how about you?

I think the far flung adventures we went on.

I've been, like I said, 38 countries.

The North Cape of Norway is far enough

as you can go by car in Europe.

We went there in a sob convertible.

It was midnight sun.

So we're like two in the morning,

starting out at the ocean at this monument

at the North Cape Club.

And Cape of Good Hope in South Africa with Mercedes SLR.

Pretty much the two arms in the world,

as far as roads.

And a Mazda Navajo in Alaska.

And Morocco and Land Rover and most recently

with the Porsche de Car.

It's just those adventures that you don't think you ever

find yourself doing this in a car.

Now I think you need to, though, kind of dispel

some of the impressions.

You've been to a lot of places.

I feel a lot of airports.

But how many of them have you really seen?

I've spent extra days from probably a dozen trips

over the years.

You fly in, spend the night, drive the car

and fly home the next day.

I always tell everyone I've been to every country in Europe,

but I can't tell you anything about any of them.

Except the airports.

Except the airports, yeah.

Greg, how about you?

Yeah, the travel's always a big one.

Flying us to, the Porsche flies us to Spain

and I'm doing a 911 GT3 and it had a manual

and you guys entrusted me with coming back

with a road test, working with a videographer

I've never worked with before.

So it was kind of like that throw me in the fire moment.

Not only am I in a strange country,

not only am I working with somebody I've never met before,

PR people I've never talked to before,

driving a car I've never driven on a track.

It's called confidence.

It's just one of those things where it's like,

I can't, I think about it now.

I'm like, how did I respond in that situation?

But you don't, you just do.

And I just remember how, A, how proud I was

that I was able to do it and came back

and I ended up, I think I voiced that road test

which was, I think the first road test I've ever,

anybody besides John had done.

And I'll tell you, that is still one

of our best road tests ever.

It was really good.

It was a great track footage.

Yeah, we drove through, yeah and credit to Tom Morningstar

was the guy who I worked with and he's awesome

and we just drove around.

Again, the fact, the grand scale of that trip,

like Porsche just gives us the keys of this GT3,

says go drive for the day

and then come back and the track's yours

and that's what I did all day long

and we drove through all these tiny towns in Spain

and like got out, we took pictures with the people

who obviously came out to see this car

and it was just like, I think about it now

and it's like, I mean, maybe,

I was in my mid-20s at the time.

I'm like, that's just crazy.

That's just crazy to me now.

But yeah, definitely a great memory.

What about you, John?

Oh, well, you know, I've-

Not to put you on the spot.

No, no, I've spent the entire 45 years

probably sending people to a lot more places,

to a lot more exciting events

than I ever got to go to myself

just because when you go on these big trips overseas,

you're pretty much out of commission for a week

and generally the production schedule

didn't allow me to do that.

But I did my fair share, especially in the early years

and there's two of them, I think,

that stand out both of them also in Europe.

One was, I think, 1990.

It was when the Corvette ZR1

first became a actual model

and not just an option kit.

And it was a C4 Corvette.

It had a new Lotus engineered 32-valve,

5.7 liter V8.

In those days, 375 horsepower was a lot.

We were in France driving around

and I'll never forget it.

We were going to overnight in the South of France

in a town called Carcassonne.

And if you know anything about Carcassonne,

it's a walled city.

Medieval doesn't even begin to describe it.

And as we're driving into Carcassonne,

there's one road in

and it leads to the center of the castle,

of the walled city.

And it's all cobblestones

and people were hanging out of their shops

and houses to see this influx of American,

big American cars,

much bigger than what they were used to driving or seeing.

We had four to six inches of clearance

on either side of the mirrors

as we're driving up through the town.

And the mirrors did not fold in or anything like that.

So you're driving, you're petrified

that some stone sticking out on the side

is gonna catch it and destroy the mirror

and basically you'll be sent home in shame.

But we drove in, we got there,

we had a wonderful time there.

The entire trip was was kind of illuminating

because I think it was the first time

that I had driven an American car on European roads

and you realize just how big they are

compared to everything else.

The second great memory was also in the early nineties

around 93 when the Dodge Viper came to be the first RT-10.

The Dodge Viper, in case those of you

that don't remember it,

it was the brainchild of Bob Lutz

who was president of Chrysler at the time

and legendary designer, Tom Gale

and engineering aficionado, Francois Gastang,

all basically got together,

they wanted to do basically a Shelby-like car for Chrysler.

And they came up with this concept

and they basically at that time,

Chrysler owned Lamborghini.

So Lamborghini got the brilliant idea

of taking a V8 that Chrysler had

and sticking a couple extra cylinders on it

and calling it a V10.

And lo and behold, this rough and ready,

unbelievably crude but fun to drive sports car

came out of it and they took us to Europe to drive it.

And we got, that was the first time I got to drive

on the Nürburgring.

And I actually made it around in the car

and I've forgotten who was my co-pilot,

someone from Chrysler at the time.

But one of the journalists was unlucky enough

to have Phil Hill as his, the legendary American race driver

who was just a wonderful human being as his co-pilot.

He was sitting in the passenger seat

and that journalist crashed the car.

And I've forgotten exactly which turn was

but it was the corkscrew

and I've forgotten what number they call that.

But I remember afterwards that Phil was very, very upset

because he had spent his entire career

never crashing at the Nürburgring.

And here he is with basically someone

that probably didn't know what they were doing

compared to him, of course, that would be everyone.

And they crashed the car

and he happened to be along for the ride.

He didn't get injured

but the car I believe was messed up pretty badly.

But memorable events, both in Europe

both in legendary American sports cars.

And I think that sticks out among my best memories.

Yeah, cool, it's a good one.

So before we leave this topic,

I should say that I do get asked all the time

how did Motor Week come about?

Here's the very quick Reader's Digest version.

I was at Maryland Public Television.

I was producing Wall Street Week with Lewis Ruchizer.

I had become executive producer.

Warren Park, the program director told me he needed

to see if I could do something other than just ride

someone else's coattails

because Wall Street Week had been developed

by Ann Darlington, who hired me.

And so I came up with the concept of Motor Week.

We did a pilot in 1978.

It's set on the shelves for three years

and July 5th, 1981,

Warren told me to go ahead with production

and I said, could you be on the air in six months?

And I said, we'll be on the air in six weeks.

We didn't quite make that

but we did go on the air that fall

and we thought we'd be around for about five years

and have fun with cars.

Craig Singhaus and the crew,

mostly folks from Inside MPT who had an affection for cars

and some other great capability as far as television.

I walked the parking lot and I looked at vehicles

who drove what and you mentioned Lisa Barrow.

Lisa Barrow drove a Pontiac Fiero.

And I said, wow, that's a sports car.

That's good enough for me.

But Lisa was what we call in those days

a booth announcer and she would do the station brakes

and the promos and so you heard her voice

but didn't see her that much.

And I said, come with us

and we'll not only use your wonderful voice

but put you on camera and send you all around the world

doing some very exciting things and that's what happened.

And Craig had a Mustang

and Joyce Braga drove a Porsche 924.

Porsche, Joyce Braga who was our first news reporter.

She had a Porsche 924

and of course that was like the only exotic car

at that time in the parking lot.

And Craig of course, a legendary Mustang fan.

He used to race Mustangs.

Craig actually, if you go on to YouTube

and you find our pilot,

Craig was actually playing the role

of auto mechanic on the pilot.

And that was before we stumbled upon Pat Goss

who was actually doing a segment

for another Maryland Public TV series at the time

as their automotive expert.

And we latched on to him and off we went running.

Thought it'd be for a short while

and here we are 45 years later.

I produced his segments for 25 plus years.

You certainly did.

So here we are 45 years later

and this coming weekend show will be our 2,134th show.

2,134.

So where are we going, Brian?

Well, this season we have a lot of stuff that we're planning.

We started, I guess six, seven months ago

we started planning for all new graphics package

that's come together really, really nicely.

We have a new animation at the beginning of the show

and all the graphics are very modern looking,

fresh and clean.

It will certainly help enhance the visually of the show.

Greg, what have you got planned for the 45th?

We've got some cool OTE segments,

one that's already been put together

that really came out nicely on some college competition

that is focused on like Baja.

Yeah, off-road.

Yeah, so a lot of really cool stuff there

and happened to be in Maryland.

I didn't even know about it until one of our videographers

emailed it to me and like next week

I was down there shooting it, so that was cool.

And we have our anniversary episode

on cooking up a little something that'll be fun.

Take us behind the cameras and see some things

that people don't often see and hopefully in a different way.

Cover some areas we haven't covered

in other anniversary episodes.

I think you also hit on something

that a lot of the ideas we do for your segment

and other segments on the show come from ideas

that we hear from fans and sometimes just by accident.

Yeah, all the word of mouth

is how I get a lot of my segments

and people forward them to me fans, anybody?

Each week we're also gonna have a little 45s.

A little retro.

Flashback, looking back at some of the cool highlights

from all these things.

Yeah, I'm having fun picking those out.

I'm going through the sort of schedules

like the show has the passport in.

Now that we have all of the episodes in one location

and you can, it's a little bit easier.

Digitized.

I dug up the first Honda Passport test we did

with actually a rebadged Asuzu radio

and got a clip of that to put in the show that week.

What about the garage segments?

You're still basically down there

every summer producing all of our car care.

All the season.

Your drive segments now.

We do that.

Yeah, we're doing a little behind the scenes bit.

I'm actually gonna pay homage to Pat Goss again

for an anniversary show.

But the three, the four people we have

just set be Audra, Dan and Logan

are all doing their own little thing with your drive

and putting their own spin on car care

and preparedness and all that.

So it'll be fun.

It's gonna be an exciting 45th season.

We're doing a lot of things that we've not done before

but we're not forsaking our tried and true mission

of bringing you all of the new car information

we can get Ira.

Informations, King.

Hands on and cameras looking at for now,

for gosh, next 12 months.

Great.

I suppose at this point,

we ought to even talk about the hardware

that we're going to be debuting on our 45th season.

Our first episode, we've got two vehicles.

The 2025 Ferrari Roma Spider, that leads off the show.

It's the drop top version of the Portofino Coupe

which arrived back in 2017.

Dave, why don't you lead us off on the car too

because you know actually more about the car

than anyone else.

How does it fit into the Ferrari lineup

and what did you think of it?

It's definitely a grand touring machine

so much not the hypercar you think of

as a lot of the modern Ferraris these days.

It was 612 horsepower which is more than adequate

for any car on the road.

But it's really not a track focused machine.

It's meant for cruising the back roads.

And it's gorgeous.

We borrowed that from a friend of mine,

a collector friend who's very gracious

and actually I saw him driving it last week

past my house with his top down and his wife beside him.

He looked appropriate in that.

You guys look good in that car.

But I probably put 200 miles on it over the week we had it

and just a delight to drive.

Did you drive it in the comfort, sport or the race mode?

I did not put it in race mode.

I didn't want to.

There's an indicator when you turn the car off

a holograph pops up and it says

the top speed you've achieved is 125.

And it wasn't me, that was the owner.

I didn't want to top that and give it back to him

with I drove it faster than you did.

I know when I drove the Roma I was

and I didn't drive it as hard as you did.

I was just overwhelmed by what a luscious automobile it was.

I'm, you know, I've driven a lot of Ferraris over the years.

Sometimes they have rough edges.

This car really didn't.

Yeah, the materials were top notch inside.

It's just the design was beautiful.

That shark nose and the way that.

Very historic look.

Very historic.

Did it feel to you like it was a Ferrari

for a different generation?

Like I hopped in there and it was like

there's all the screens and the butt like,

I know like it just felt like it maybe was like,

I don't know, like, like,

it's a modern car for a new one.

This one felt definitively like new

and maybe not for the classic Ferrari.

I think that, I think that's a reasonable observation.

I don't know.

What does our friend think of it?

I mean, it's, you know, he was always driving it.

He was out driving it last Sunday.

I saw him drive on the house.

He's owned a lot of Ferraris.

No gated shifter folks.

You know, that's long history.

It has the whole.

But it is different.

It's definitely an homage to the game shifter.

He has other Ferraris classics and modern as well.

And it's a place in his garage

and he enjoys driving as the top goes down

and it's a great Sunday cruiser.

Brian, you had something to add?

The one we tested was 400?

Oh yeah.

Not for the faint of heart or the unbudgets.

400 and something.

The legendary option list on Ferraris

is just incredible.

And they had a whole list of the options available

with the logos and sea and certain things.

And the last line said other options, $89,000.

What were those other options?

I didn't say it.

It's just like, okay, just give us some money.

They've taken a page from the Rolls Royce book, I think.

Okay, before we get to our second test today,

which will be the Toyota 4Runner,

we've got some other things on our agenda.

And I do want to take just a moment

to thank the sponsors of this podcast

and of everything Motor Week right now.

Auto Value and Bumper to Bumper and TireRack.com.

We know our viewers and listeners

appreciate your dedication to Motor Week.

And we're gonna take a little sidetrack

from this nostalgia and this great hardware

and talk about our lightning round this week

where we basically go around the table

and see what everybody's comments are

about some trending automotive topic.

And this past week, according to iccars.com,

they put out a report that used car prices

are up almost 4% in just the last five months

after being on a downward trend

for the last two and a half years.

It translates according to them to about a $1,200 increase

in what consumers have to pay

for the average one to five-year-old used car.

So going around the table,

why do you think this is happening

and do you think this is a long-term trend

or something that's gonna be reversed?

Greg, you wanna start?

I hate to take the safe answer here,

but I mean, the stuff is cyclical,

so eventually it'll end, like it just said,

it obviously was on a downtrend.

At some point it was gonna have to go up,

but I would guess it's saying over the last five months,

I mean, I'm not a political science major,

but I would say terrorists probably have

a little something to do with it

because new car prices are going up,

which means people may be tossed out of that market

going to used cars, which then brings up

the used car market because now there's more demand

for used cars, and then obviously there's the whole still,

I think we're still feeling the residual effect of COVID

and lack of production of cars during that time.

So I mean, I don't think it's anything

to really feel super upset or scared about,

but I would expect it to probably maybe go up here

for a little while longer.

Yeah, there's fewer off-lease vehicles.

People are keeping their vehicles longer,

so therefore the new car dealers

don't have more used cars than self.

So the inventory is down,

so that's obviously part of the problem.

I think interest rates are falling recently,

so that might trend down a little bit

when they make it more affordable.

The payments lower at least.

I think there's also something going on underneath

that the dealerships, and then talking now

about new car dealerships,

they're recognizing that the headwinds are more difficult

and frankly, some of the increases in prices,

they're having to eat it,

so they're turning to other parts of their businesses

like the used cars to try and make up for some of that.

Electric used car sales, those numbers are down

as far as the price of the electric cars.

Yeah, if you're in the market for an EV right now,

there's some incredible deals on used car vehicles.

Yeah, I mean, I took advantage of the rebate

that's gonna be going away here shortly on an EV lease.

I got a Solterra, which is the exact long-term

we have now, but I realized that like,

I really, as like a daily driver, man,

like I was down with that thing,

and it's, you know, for my daily usage and the price,

I couldn't find anything better.

Well, you wanted to experience owners.

And I wanted, right, so I already,

I had a car that I didn't want.

It was, I inherited after I sold my Miata,

and I'm just like, I need something,

but I don't need something flashy.

And, oh, here's this Solterra.

What, you don't need any money down?

What, it's for, you know, like $300 a month?

And I'm like, let's see how real it is.

And I get to live with an electric car.

And, you know, I just wanna see what it's like

and it's not much money.

And it's so far, I'm digging it.

You know, it's one of those things

where we're gonna see a huge spike in electric car sales

during the month of September 2025

because the federal incentives end

at the end of the month.

And a lot of people are going to be buying them

as second cars, where the technology

and the charging and everything else

seems to make the most sense at the moment.

Absolutely.

Anyone else?

No.

All right, I wanna remind everyone listening

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For the last 43 years, almost as long

as Motor Week has been on the air,

if you wanted true off-road capability

and a SUV with four doors, the truck-based body on frame,

Toyota 4Runner has generally been towards the top

of most buyers list.

Now for 2025, there's a new six-gen 4Runner

ready to keep that legacy going.

Greg, let me turn to you

since you've basically done more off-roading recently

than anyone else.

What's new and what's not new about the 4Runner?

Well, styling is obviously new,

but I like to use the term you always talk about.

It's like evolutionary, not revolutionary.

It's still very obviously a 4Runner.

And actually, anecdotal a little bit here,

I was behind a TRD Pro 4Runner the other day,

and I didn't realize what that does

to the new 4Runner shape.

From behind it looks super aggressive,

way more aggressive than any 4Runner today.

I just thought that was very,

and I wasn't necessarily into it.

That's the toughest looking 4Runner.

Easily.

We didn't have a TRD Pro.

We had a Limited.

Limited, yeah.

And which I think that's for the person

who wants to look rugged,

but really just goes to the grocery store

and takes kids to soccer practice.

That's kind of what you're gonna fall into.

And yeah, for me, it's the interior updates,

which the 4Runner severely needed

because we tested one last year.

It was the last of the fifth gen.

Well, that fifth generation was like 15 years ago.

Yeah, it's been, it was.

So it definitely needed.

And they're 43 years.

Most automakers would have added

at least two or three more gens to the tablet.

So you get a nice big screen.

It's all very functional,

much more functional than it was before.

But it's still, again, like it's the whole,

like they didn't forget their base of owners.

And a lot of these people

are gonna be previous 4Runner owners.

I don't think it really steps on the toes

of the Land Cruiser that they came out with.

I think they do separate themselves.

Land Cruiser, I think still,

while it did come down marker

from what the Land Cruiser was when it went away,

it's still, I feel like,

in a slightly different category than before.

It's still a significant step up in price,

and I think room.

Yeah, and the new turbo, the hybrid powertrain,

which Toyota you knew was gonna have to drop in

to a 4Runner, a 2.4 liter turbo four.

You can get an I-4 Max powertrain in it,

so that just boosts horsepower and everything about it.

To me, I think that they, again,

they checked all the boxes

of what a 4Runner needs to be.

As in, it's a little bit rugged,

but now it just probably offers the most tech it ever has.

I think it's finally caught up,

because now, I think a couple of years ago,

you could have gotten away with coming out something

that was a little lo-fi on the inside.

Now I think everything needs to be high tech,

and I think they did that with the new 4Runner.

Yeah, and they also added 1,000 more pounds

to the towing capacity, up to 6,000 pounds now.

It's significant.

It's like the perfect time to return it,

because everybody's into these soft rotors,

which I wouldn't call the 4Runner a soft rotor,

because it actually walks the walk

in terms of off-roading.

But everybody goes out and wants to do activities

on the weekend, camping activities,

so that extra 1,000 pounds of towing is a big deal,

because a lot of people are out towing

and taking their toys out to the lake.

Yeah, my experience in it,

I thought the seats were really, really comfortable.

We had the 20-inch tire,

so the ride was a little stiffer,

but you put it in the comfort mode,

and it tweaked that a bit.

It has a better seating position.

Yeah, yeah.

You just feel more comfortable with your legs.

They're not quite as stretched as far out

in front of you.

That's always my view,

if you sit with your legs straight in front of you.

Me too.

Yeah, yeah.

It was a lot of fun to drive though.

What's the one thing, though,

for a lot of 4Runner fans that didn't change?

The glass.

The electric rear window.

It's a huge deal for me.

No hatching, no upward-opening hatch,

just a nice rear winner.

Yeah, it wouldn't be a 4Runner without it.

They would, I can't imagine what kind of backlash

they would have faced if they would have come out

with a 4Runner.

It would have been just like everything else.

Right, heresy.

Anything else?

Good for me.

We're gonna wrap things up in just a second,

but I do think we need to pause

on this very special episode and see,

starting off the 45th season,

does anybody around the table have a rant or a rave

that they want to throw out there?

Something that, you know, we've had a summer of driving

and some of it's been pretty adventuresome.

Go ahead, Brian.

I will.

So I traveled to New York quite often

and last weekend I was actually in California

and they do this in both states

and I think it's legal in California,

but I'm not sure in New York.

Lane splitters, motorcycle lane splitters.

Traffic comes to a halt, you know,

we're going five miles,

all of a sudden somebody's driving up,

riding up their bike, 20, 30 miles.

On the line.

Super unsafe.

I do not understand why that is legal.

Now I understand that if you're going the right speed

and you're playing as safe as a motorcyclist,

probably as safer that they're not sitting in traffic,

they're moving up,

but far too many motorcyclists

are just lane splitting dangerously, I think.

Drives me nuts.

Don't open that door without looking.

No, no.

The first time it ever happened to me in California,

I was totally in shock.

I actually didn't realize it was legal.

Also, and actually in some of the New York trips

I've been taking recently,

the people driving on the shoulders.

Oh, passing on the shoulders.

Yeah, just driving on the shoulders

and no one's stopping them.

I see cars, I see cops and no one's stopping.

Every once in a while,

10 cars are driving by,

flying at 30 miles an hour,

everyone else is sitting still.

My wife almost had an anxiety attack

that cars are just flying by us.

Drives me nuts a little.

It does seem that we,

even if it's not illegal,

we've lost pretty much most of the decorum on the highway.

You gotta remember, folks out there,

there's somebody else driving around beside you.

So anyway, that's my rent and raise.

That's a good one, anyone else?

I'll save mine for another time.

All right, I'm gonna hold off.

All right, well we,

I think we basically packed about as much

into this podcast as we possibly could

and it was a lot of fun.

Many thanks to Dave Scrivner,

Brian Roberts and Greg Carlos.

For helping us all kick off

this 45th season of podcast for Motor Week.

And thank you for listening to our podcast today.

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Season 45 Premiere Preview! Plus How Things Have Changed in 45 Years of MotorWeek

About this episode

Toyota 4Runner

Chevrolet Suburban

Mercedes-Benz Sclass

Ferrari 360

Ferrari 550 Maranello

Chevrolet Corvette

Dodge Viper

Pontiac Fiero

Ford Mustang

Porsche 924

Honda Passport

Ferrari Portofino

Subaru Solterra

Mazda MX-5 / Miata

Toyota Land Cruiser

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